desembre

Well, it's been a while, and I once again find myself with homework to do, so what better time than now to blog?

My UPF classes ended on Tuesday, so I now have inordinate amounts of free time, which I somehow almost always end up wasting. This does not bode well for me, since I now have only 14 days left in Barcelona. FOURTEEN! I also have a very long list of things to do while I'm still here, so I should be at the very least doing things from that, if not actually studying. Tuesday I also had my final exam in Art History. It wasn't too bad - I think that I could have done better if I had remembered the names of some "Die Brucke" artists. But life goes on.

I was supposed to have the oral part of my Islam History final on Monday, but the professor said he was too busy to conduct any finals that week, and would have to reschedule them all for next week. So a good 35 out of the 97 people in my class had to reschedule. Mine is now on Thursday, and the written is on Tuesday. My Borges term paper is also due on Tuesday, my Spanish essay is due on Wednesday, and my Spanish final is on Friday. What a fun week.

Last week though, I did lots of fun things. Like buy a Barack Obama caganer! I also went to Mt. Tibidabo with Stacey and Danielle, but we were too late for the funicular, which closes at four, so we watched the sunset from a cafe half way up the "mountain." Barack is posing in front of Barcelona at dusk - the view is from that cafe. I also saw the magic fountain show at Placa Espanya, which was GREAT. I saw it during La Merce, but because of all the people and all the fireworks, I didn't get to see as much of the fountain as I would have liked. This time we were standing literally right in front of the fountain, and it was definitely magical. I also went to the Thai Lounge with Stacey, which is supposed to have the best Thai food in Barcelona, and had some amazing pad thai and some weird dim sum. They were both delicious, although not exactly what I was expecting. I also had the best cocktail of my life at a bar called Cabart - the femme fatale. It's rum, ginger, cardamom, cinnamon, sugar, lime, and bitters. Amazing. On the same evening, we saw a Portland band called Yacht at the Apolo! Danielle and I wanted to somehow communicate to them that we were from Portland, but they didn't give us a good opportunity to scream after they said "Portland," so it didn't work out.

Maddy's friend from UO, Leah, is in Barcelona this weekend with some friends from her Sevilla program, so I have hung out with them a bit. We had some delicious Italian food in El Born, and they met us at the magic fountain show as well. I should hang out with them right now - but even more than that, and even more than blogging, I should be writing about metafiction. But it has been so long since I've written a paper! I don't know where to begin. I mean... I've totally begun already. Please. My paper is due in two days, of course I've begun.

Anyway, only seven more "things" to do before I am done with school, and only fourteen more days to do the forty more things on my "Last month in Barcelona" list.

With each step I am more certain

SO. Rodgers & Hammerstein are pretty much my personal heroes.
This seemingly random factoid comes to you as a way of introducing my London trip this weekend! On Saturday night, Charlotte and I (on a complete whim) bought tickets to see The Sound of Music in the London Palladium, which I SWEAR is famous somehow. I know it is the first place that the Beatles performed live on TV, but I thought maybe there was more? Anyway, it was magical (except that Captain von Trapp sort of was awful), and completely rekindled my love of all things musical theatre-related.

London!
I left Barcelona on Thursday night, immediately after my Latin Am Lit class. Unfortunately, we went on a field trip to the middle of nowhere, and I only got back to Placa Catalunya in time to catch my bus because I ran ahead of the group on the way home. I also ran across the airport to the check-in gate, where I found that the exceedingly slippery marble floors combined with my exceedingly slick black flats make for a very precarious running situation. And, just like last time I had to run to the airport, my flight was delayed. I sat next to a wonderful woman who is American but has lived in Spain on and off for the last 16 years. She lives with her daughter in a little pueblo on the beach just outside of Barcelona, and works in the city. Her mother, who is still in the states, sends them "love boxes" every month packed with US goodies that they can't get here - so we met when she turned to me and asked if I wanted anything from her giant bag of Halloween candy. Three Snickers, two Mars bars, and one Milky Way later, we were pretty much best friends. I lent her my copy of the Economist (I caved and bought it this past week because it not only had Obama, it also had a special report on Spain), we bonded over how difficult the Catalans are to befriend, and we shared the bond that only two stressed women eating chocolate together can really share.
I got to London about 40 minutes later than expected, and took a train into town from the airport, arriving just minutes after the tube closed. Weird side note: while on the train I was listening to my iPod and it froze at about a minute into "Tiny Dancer." This crushed me. I restarted my iPod, but I was desperate to hear the rest, so I went back to "Tiny Dancer," only to have it freeze again at the exact same moment! So basically I was very depressed because I had a taste of Elton but was DENIED. Anyway, I arrived at Liverpool St, David and Charlotte were there to greet me, and we began the very long and painful experience of finding our hostel. After no less than three buses, at least 40 minutes of waiting for buses, and a good 20 minutes of walking, we arrived at about 2:45 am. Char had already checked us in, and we went to bed - only to be woken again every hour by either someone coming back late or the EPIC snoring man in the bunk across from me.

The next day, David carted us around to all the touristy things, after having a delicious English breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and tea (oh eggs!). We saw Big Ben & Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, a bunch of parks, St. Paul's cathedral, Millennium bridge, the Globe theatre, London bridge, Harrods (where we had afternoon tea), and then we absolutely died and had to have a nap post-tea. It was all cool, but both Char and I had been to London before with our families so neither of us really FREAKED OUT at seeing Big Ben or Buckingham Palace. That night, we made a delicious salad and pasta dinner in David's building (ps I miss chopping things. Weird?), and headed home so we could hopefully fall asleep before snoring man. Unfortunately, snoring man was gone and replaced by NEW snoring man, who snored less frequently but with similar intensity. I fell asleep to the dulcet tones of Amos Lee, and dreamt of Whitman in the spring.

Saturday, we went to Notting Hill, to the Portobello St market. Although I had a mission (candlesticks for Mom!), I was cut short by the impressive price tag on all of the good ones. Antiques are expensive, it seems. The market was incredible though, with basically anything old you could ever want. At the end there were some non-antique stores and food stands, and the entire thing was absolutely amazing. I would venture to say it was the best outdoor market I have ever been to. Definitely the best antique one, because I haven't been to many outdoor antique markets. I bought a gorgeous green & black pashmina, but didn't find the ideal chunky candlesticks I had in mind. I did bullshit my way through a discussion of 1870s style candlesticks, though, with a man asking 400 pounds for the candlesticks I was pretending to still be interested in after seeing the price.
From there we went to SoHo, which is DEFINTELY where I would want to live if I were to have billions of pounds. We wandered a little and had curry for lunch (so good), before discussing where exactly all our money had gone. We walked to Carnaby St, which was apparently THE place for mod people in the 60s (can people be mod? I don't really know how to use that), but now is just obscenely crowded and posh. Or yuppie. However you like. At one end though, is the Palladium, where we were enticed by the Sound of Music, and we bought tickets immediately. We asked about prices and availability, said we'd come back, and turned around before even leaving the building and decided we HAD to go. We killed some time pre-show by heading to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, where we had a bit of difficulty getting on the very large and slippery lions. Next we had a beer at a bar where Allison could watch the rugby game, and headed to the theatre, where Allison decided she had to see it as well. The Sound of Music just has a magical power like that. The Mother Superior was SO good, and Maria was good as well, but Georg just failed in line delivery and with his extremely nasal singing. It was the only time I have ever disliked Edelweiss. YEAH. Also, the couple next to us and their very chatty toddler had Chinese takeout and were eating it during the show! So inappropriate! It filled the entire area with the undeniable stench of noodles. After the show, we had Cornish pasties in Covent Gardens and took the tube back to West Kensington before it closed.
Another wonderful night... new snoring man - who by the way when we left that morning had been reading the paper in his bed, surrounded by sleeping people, even though there's a huge, nice lounge that was EMPTY - woke up at 4 am and started getting ready to leave, which involved turning the overhead light on and leaving it on, shaving in the room even though there is a bathroom next door, and generally making altogether too much noise. RUDE.

Sunday, we went to the British Museum, where literally the first thing we saw was the Rosetta stone. Everything else (minus Cleopatra's mummy) was kind of a let down after that. It was amazing but so so huge and we didn't have time to see everything I wanted to see, and we never got to go to the National Gallery, which is similarly huge and amazing. So basically I just want to go back to London. Museums are free there too! What is up with charging for museums? It shouldn't happen. Donations, yes. Admission, no.
We had lunch in Covent Gardens, went back to the hostel for our stuff, and headed back into town where I was told by my cab driver that trains weren't running to Stansted airport because of a breakdown! This turned out to be untrue, but certainly didn't help my Pepto Bismol-levels of stress at the time. Then I was kicked out of security for my contact solution because I didn't have a note from my doctor (airports I have declared and carried it through so far: Amsterdam, Milan, Barcelona), and I bought two little bottles which I was informed were not sterile and not appropriate for contact solution, and went back through. I got to my gate in time for final call, and made it back to Barcelona exhausted and shocked at how cold it was (55 degrees!).

My entire host family is extremely sick, and I have only three weeks until finals and only five weeks left in Spain. All of the Christmas decorations are up in the city but they aren't lit yet, so I am feeling very teased with the prospect of the holidays. Also, I went to Flash-Flash today, a bar/tortilleria where Boom writers like Garcia Marquez used to hang out when they were in Barcelona. It was all white and super mod. I think.
I'm at a weird place, because I am feeling not at all ready to leave Barcelona, but I want it to be Christmas RIGHT NOW. Going to London felt like going half-way home, since everyone spoke English and I had access to a lot more American things I can't get here, and it made me miss home, but I'm so happy to be back in Barcelona. Every time I walk to class I just die of happiness from the beauty of the city and the intense fabulousness of my life.

Escocia: Extremely Cold.

Ok, picking right back up where I left off, I flew from Hamburg to Glasgow on Monday, arriving in Glasgow International Airport at around 6 pm. There was a jewelery ad in the baggage claim that had a picture of earrings and said, "It's not like you came for the weather." That was to be my first omen. The second omen was when I walked outside. I headed towards the "bus" sign, hoping to find my way to Central Station, and as soon as I walked outside a bus pulled up that said Buchanan Bus Station, via Central Station. I got on, paid, and sat nervously watching through the window so I would be able to tell when we were actually at Central Station. Oddly enough, I didn't already know what it looked like, and this proved to be entirely fruitless. I ended up asking the people in front of me where we were at every stop until they told me Central. It's a good thing someone knew what was going on. I then sat in the freezing cold train station wrapped in as much clothing as I could bear until Cara arrived, and Terry Feeley came to pick us up!
Now. For those of you who don't know the Feeley's, they may in fact be one of the best families I have ever met. Terry drove us to their home in Bearsden, a suburb in north Glasgow (which is eerily lit with green spotlights at night), where Eva had a hot dinner waiting for us. YES. We had butternut squash soup followed by pasta and delicious bread and then rhubarb apple pie and tea for dessert. I knew then that the trip wouldn't be anything short of magical. They pulled out dozens of brochures on Glasgow, Edinburgh, the highlands, Loch Ness, Loch Lomond, and Stirling Castle, and helped us begin to plan the week. Cara and I each had our own room, with what was the greatest continental quilt I have ever encountered in my life on my bed. It seemed to just bounce all of my body heat right back at me - I want to buy one. Except it's not cold enough to really merit one, but it was so great.
The next morning we decided to conquer Glasgow, and Eva drove us into town and helped us get set up on one of those double-decker bus tours. It started off well enough, but we soon realized that 4 degree weather (Celsius, remember) combined with the wind on top of a bus was not a good combination. We didn't move, but we realized we had made a horrible mistake. We saw about half of the tour, marking places we wanted to go back, and then got off at the University of Glasgow. We stopped to go to the bathroom and try to regain feeling in our limbs, then went up to the Hunterian Museum, which is the collection of stuff William Hunter gathered throughout his life. It was really cool, and very crazy. There was one part where he had preserved the bodies of disfigured animals - so weird. There were conjoined twin baby deer, and squirrel things with eight legs, and other weird things like that. From there we went to the Hunterian Gallery, which is the art part, and I made up for the fact that I was missing art history by seeing lots and lots of James Whistler. From there we got back on the bus and saw the second half of the tour, then got off and had lunch at Cafe Gondolfi, a recommendation that came courtesy of Cara's "Top 10: Escocia" travel book. From there we went to the cathedral, the necropolis, and then a medieval house that was built in 1471! It is the oldest house in Glasgow. The cathedral has the tomb of St. Mungo, Glasgow's patron saint, in the bottom. It was all really cool, although the necropolis wasn't as old as I was hoping - they were all from the 1850s. After that we got some tea and found out that all museums close at 5 pm in Glasgow, so we were stuck. We met Francis and Terry at Terry's building, and Francis gave us her keys so we could go home, where we vegged out and watched the Simpsons on their couch for... far too long.
The next day, we took the train to Stirling Castle, which was built in the TWELFTH century. Definitely old enough for me. There are lots of additions from other eras, but still. It was gorgeous and the town of Stirling was really cute too. We found this basement part sort of by accident and it seemed like it could have been a prison, or a tomb, or something. SO COOL. Also, all I could think of the entire time was either Monty Python or Black Adder. That continued through most of the trip. Then we went back to town, had lunch at Martin's cafe, and Terry drove us out to the bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond. We drove around to several parts before heading to Lomond Shores, where there is a mall, and we had a cup of coffee. We had to head home though, because Eva had bought HAGGIS for us for dinner! We had haggis with mashed potatoes and turnips (tatties and neeps), and I was shocked to find that it was actually delicious. I just don't want to think about what's actually in it: "sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach." BLEH. But it was delicious! Kind of like hot dogs that way. For dessert we had sticky toffee pudding with cream and more tea. I could get used to life at the Feeley's house.
On Thursday we took the train to Edinburgh, where we saw the Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Mile, the National Gallery, and the Royal Museum of Scotland, and we may have climbed Arthur's Seat, or we may have climbed something similar but smaller? Either way, we got an incredible view of Edinburgh until I fell in mud on the way down - so cute. Cara got a good picture. The castle was amazing, but a little more kitsch than Stirling, because it had a bunch of fake recreations - things like mannequins in the rooms and recordings of them talking. The prison was REALLY cool though, and they had three of the original doors, which prisoners had carved their name, the date (1770s!), and sometimes their ship or something else into. Those were really cool. The National Gallery was so so amazing - I could have spent twice as much time in it than we did, but I think Cara was ready to go? And we hit the Royal Museum only an hour before closing, so I missed a ton of cool stuff. But I did see some canister that historians actually know belonged to Bonnie Prince Charlie. How they find out that stuff, I'll never know. For lunch, I had steak and ale pie with mashed potatoes and an incredible beer (I think it was Belhaven Burns Ale... not sure but by god I will find out) and Cara had fish and chips. Delicious. We took the train back into town, but the train to Bearsden was severely delayed, so Terry came out and picked us up! Basically they just took such wonderful care of us all the time. We had a delicious dinner again that night, of minestrone soup, a Tuscan salad, and orange chicken. (Sorry I'm talking more about the food than the sights, but my GOD the food was good) Also, John's daughter Roisin (pronounced Rosh-een) was staying with them that night, and she is almost two and the CUTEST CHILD ALIVE. She kept saying "I see you girls!" when she looked through her little binoculars at Cara or I. So cute I didn't even know what to do with her.
Friday we took a bus tour of the Highlands - it was a small tour, limited to 16 people but there were only 6 of us plus the driver and his wife. It was really cool, and we got to see some incredible views (don't get your hopes up - my camera battery died back in Berlin. I have NO photos of Scotland. I'll get what I can from Cara, but we... have very different photo taking styles?) that we wouldn't have seen any other way, unless we had rented a car. We also saw the sight of the Glencoe Massacre, Loch Ness, and the tallest mountain in the United Kingdom. It was a gorgeous day, so we had magnificent views, and even drove through the snow in one particularly high part of the Highlands. That night the Feeley's were at a wedding reception, and we heated up some delicious leftovers and watched more tv before going to bed.
Saturday, we went back to Glasgow to finish what we had missed on Tuesday, and saw Pollok Park, which is a huge gorgeous park that used to belong to some rich family until they gave it to the city of Glasgow. When they donated it, the city put up the Burrell Collection, another art gallery that was incredible and I could've spent days in, and turned the home into the Pollok House, which has mostly original decorations and tons of art. They were incredible. The park also has lots of Highland cows roaming around, and there's a river that runs behind the gardens of the house, and there are Clydesdales somewhere - but we couldn't find them. It was amazing. From there we went back into the center of town and had lunch, and walked out to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, a HUGE collection of art and artifacts and tons of other things - again with only an hour to cover it. We literally ran through it, so I "saw" everything but didn't get to enjoy it as much as I would have liked. Also, an interesting fact I noticed is that the museums we went to in both Edinburgh and Glasgow are set up for children to enjoy them as well. There are lots of interactive exhibits, even about things that don't normally cater to children, say, French impressionist exhibits. ALSO the best thing EVER is that all the museums in Glasgow are free. The castles are spendy, though. That night we ordered in some amazing curries and watched The X Factor with Eva and Francis, which is the UK version of American Idol. It was AWESOME, and they get way better sets than American Idol. PLUS they get back up dancers! Hello!
We got to linger in bed on Saturday morning, then had porridge with Roisin before she, Eva, and Frances dropped us at the train station to head back to the airport.
So that was Scotland... I probably left out some details, but you get the jist I'm sure, since that was plenty long. To sum up: it was freezing and I rarely felt my toes between leaving the house in the morning and getting into bed that night, the Feeleys are SO INCREDIBLY NICE, and it's much easier to get around when the spoken language is your native language - even if the accents are tough sometimes.
More pictures are up in Photobucket! Not of Scotland, but there are about 270 of the two and a half days in Berlin. Just think what I could've done with six days in Scotland. Sad.

I love the Netherlands! Who knew?

SO. Amsterdam was AMAZING. First of all, it is gorgeous and filled with canals, adorable little buildings, and approximately nine billion bicycles. I had no idea how cute it would be! Second, it has amazing food and a lot of variety in cuisines. Third, the people are extremely nice.
Jane and I arrived Friday morning and immediately began the greatest travel itinerary ever: wander around until you get hungry, eat, and repeat as necessary. We had an amazing salad with avocado and without dressing - I was pretty much sold from that moment on - and followed it up with a piece of chocolate cake. And yes, my retelling of this trip will primarily revolve around the food. Jane and I got to catch up and chat all day long, see random sites we knew nothing about, and eat all the time, so it was basically the ideal trip. After our salad/cake/coffee, we wandered around the downtown area and saw some old buildings, the national monument, that famous flower market, a book market, and some other old stuff. We then stopped again for a raspberry tart and more coffee (I had an orange juice, but it had a fly in it. I drank it anyway), more chatting, and then more walking. We accidentally found the red light district, and found ourselves very put off by the women in the windows, and made our way back to the hostel for a nap before we braved the Amsterdam nightlife. We went out to dinner at an Argentinian steak house and had the best meat I have had since leaving the states, along with empanadas, french fries, and Malbec. Outstanding. We explored a little more and made friends with a hilarious bartender whose wife was Scottish (it was very obvious from his accent - also he swore like I have never heard a non-native English speaker swear). Jane tried to learn some Dutch from him, and then he was sort of mock-offended because he thought she was saying Dutch was easy? I don't know. We explained that we meant to do it out of respect, in an effort to learn more about the place we were visiting, and he said (something along the lines of) "You know what's a better way to do that? Learn something about the history of the country before you get there. Better than just saying dankevel [or however you spell it] to your bartenders." It was all in good fun though and he was great, slash the Slovenian at the bar liked us too and bought us drinks (awkward? A little, because he was 40). We found lots of great food on our way home - pizza, more pastries, and Toblerone - and then slept long and hard the next day. OH ps Jane took all the pictures of this weekend, so you'll just have to wait for her to send them to me.
Then on Saturday we got Dutch pancakes for breakfast, went to the Anne Frank house only to decide the line wasn't really worth it, and went to the sex museum instead. It was intense. Then we wandered around downtown again until we found a flea market. From there we slowly made our way towards the Van Gogh museum, stopping anywhere and everywhere that looked pretty (and taking about nine hundred pictures posing in front of canals), and probably eating again - yes, I think we bought some truffles at a chocolate shop. On our way to the van Gogh museum we found another big market, wandered through it as well as through a nice restaurant area, and then finally to the museum itself. Unfortunately all this wandering was incredibly taxing (it's a rough life we lead), so we went a little further to find some lunch, and stumbled upon the fashion district, where we had a very swanky lunch next to someone who I think was famous. He was being interviewed at the table next to us, and then went outside and posed for some pictures in the street, and several people stopped him to say something. Anyway, that was very exciting. We split a delicious sandwich and then had warm croissants with butter and jam... oh it was so good, but the entire weekend we were always full and always conscious of the fact that we were at minimum quadrupling the recommended daily caloric intake. Then on to van Gogh, which was great (slash sooo relevant to my art history class), and back to the hostel for our nap. We are really into the Spanish schedule. For dinner, we got a recommendation for a Thai restaurant from a random hotel we saw that day, and had THE GREATEST MEAL EVER mostly because I have been craving Thai for quite some time. From there we tried to go out to dessert but failed because the cake shop we had seen earlier was closed, so we just talked for another two hours (and literally made the people next to us move over when we were laughing - very loudly - over Tina Fey's Palin impression) and made it back to the hostel. In the morning we got bagels (another scarcity in Spain) and went to the airport, and now I'm back at home where it is warm (unlike FREEZING Amsterdam). Ana had a little afternoon party with all of her siblings (of which she has six) today, and made chocolate con churros for the occasion. OH MY GOD. All thoughts of Amsterdam melted away as I sat at the table, enjoying the warm breeze from the window, dipping churros in delicious chocolate and listening to her brother-in-law argue with her brother about the social security system in Spain. One of her sisters asked me if I would come teach English to her kids for an hour a week, and I said I would love to, so that should start soon (and she'll be paying me! Won't that be fun). So even though Amsterdam was so great that I would seriously consider living there, I'm already so happy to be back in Spain and in general just so contented with life (and gastronomically satisfied) that it wasn't even a downer to leave such a wonderful city. TWO DAYS UNTIL MOM AND DAD ARRIVE! Get excited.